USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The New church and Chicago; a history > Part 5
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Resolved, that the treasurer be requested to send in his bill to each subscriber quarterly.
Resolved, that Mr. John Sears, Jr., Dr. Jas. V. Z. Blaney, and Thomas L. Forrest be appointed a committee on church music, and that they be desired to use such means for the improvement of the same in our worship as they may deem advisable.
Resolved, that any person desirous of becoming a mem- ber of this Society may make that desire known to the executive committee, either through the pastor or some member of said committee, and the committee shall com- municate such desire to the Society and, if no objection be made, the executive committee may invite such person to become a member of this Society, and said person may be admitted as a member upon his or her acknowledging the three essentials of the Church, and subscribing the platform of our Union, as contained in our record book, and receiving the right hand of fellowship from the pastor, or the chairman of the executive committee, or some member thereof acting in that capacity, by authority of the committee.
The following was adopted as one of the standing reso- lutions of the Society:
"This Society regards the payment of a part of the income of each member for the advancement of the use of the Church as a proper and necessary acknowledg- ment that we receive every blessing from the Lord, and expects that all its members will contribute to the fund of the Society, as the Lord shall give them ability."*
*NOTE .- A bill from Mr. Scammon, 1844 to 1849 inclusive, amounts to $791, including $392.96 paid to Mr. Hibbard, there being also one item for his board at the American Temperance
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The foregoing resolutions were adopted unanimously. [Signed] JAMES V. Z. BLANEY, Chairman. THOS. L. FORREST, Secretary.
hotel, $30.86, and a long list from $1 for cleaning the church room, to $46 paid for a melodion; rent of the room at $75 per annum ; oil, chairs, treadle for melodion, etc. It is receipted and given to the Society as a donation.
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JOHN RANDOLPH HIBBARD.
July 23, 1815, a few weeks after the battle of Waterloo, there was born in Jefferson county, New York, a boy whose service during the years of his manhood, in estab- lishing the New Church in the West and Northwest, can- not be overestimated.
Assuming the pastorship of the Chicago Society in 1849, in addition to the office of Superintending minister of the Illinois Association of the New Church, which he had filled for five years, he could, in the light of his own experience when coming into the Church, keenly appre- ciate the state of those with whom he was to work.
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He could see them, as there were many all over the Christian world at that time, sighing over the impossi- bility of the predestination of an established number and the foreordination of others; of the preelection of some to the heavenly state and the precondemnation of others, and all without notice, consultation, chance, pardon, con- viction, or judgment. He could see others sick at heart with the thought of the condemnation of infants to ever- lasting misery; and others in revolt at the possibility of the wretched doctrine of the atonement; and yet others at the chasm of infidelity trying to mold three persons into one God. He could see some disposing of the Word of God as a book without sense, and still others pointing with derision at the possibility of the resurrection of the body. A time had come to many with whom faith, and even faith and good works would not longer do-a time when men demanded to know. Mr. Hibbard knew that there was a way for men to know, and by knowing, some
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REV. DR. JOHN RANDOLPH HIBBARD. By Permission of the Chicago Historical Society.
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at least would love, and in knowing and loving, the Church would be established-founded-and most firmly. To know had been his want, and Swedenborg had filled it. To him the truths had been as rain to wanderers in the desert, and he knew they could be to others.
Such was the ground in which was planted the seed from which grew the Chicago Society-the seed taken from the writings of Swedenborg; people read, reread, and read again.
Thus many of the intellectual of the community read Swedenborg ; some believed and accepted and signed the roll of membership in the Society, and it grew-a society of readers of Swedenborg ; a congregation of those who wanted to hear doctrinal sermons; who could not have entertained the thought of men being New Churchmen and not readers of the writings.
John Randolph Hibbard succeeded father and grand- father in the ministry. Though born, reared, and edu- cated a Presbyterian, he was serving the United Brethren Church in Ohio, May, 1836, when in Father G-'s log cabin, in the vicinity of McArthurstown, where he held service, surrounded by woods and hills, he found Hind- marsh's "Compendium of the True Christian Religion," and on his following circuit, a month later, the complete work, "True Christian Religion," itself.
At his mother's knee he had learned the words from the "Westminster Catechism:" "In unity of this Godhead there be three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," and had blindly prayed to all three, and to each individ- ually, always remaining in ignorance of recognition, and utterly without satisfaction.
What a great revelation! and how clear and soul- satisfying, in comparison, was the new doctrine.
Reading interestedly and hard, he and his wife joined
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the Church, and the Rutland (Meigs county, Ohio) Soci- ety at the time of organization, July 14, 1839, when they were baptized with five others, the seven forming the new Society ; the Rev. M. M. Carll officiating.
He was ordained into the first grade of the New Church ministry, with his father, Mr. Elisha R. Hibbard, at Cin- cinnati, in the Western Convention, June 9, 1839; at Cincinnati, May 9, 1842, in the Western Convention, into the second grade, residing at that time in Gallipolis, Ohio. In 1844 he was living at Canton, this state, and appears the first time in the General Convention, which was held in New York City, June 9th, as a minister from Illinois.
His name appears first in the roll of Ordaining min- isters in 1847, when residing in Peoria, having been made an Ordaining minister by the Convention of that year, on Sunday, June 13th, he preached the Convention sermon from the text, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark xvi :15).
He was elected vice-president of the Convention at Boston, June 27, 1855, which office he filled until suc- ceeded by Mr. Scammon in 1862; pastor of the Chicago Society, May, 1849, which, under his charge, became one of the most prosperous New Church Societies in the whole Church.
Of medium height, thick and solid frame, dark brown hair, dark and alert eyes, decided in speech, quick and forceful in motion, the man of action, determination, and force was ever present with Mr. Hibbard.
He had hungered and been given bread, thirsted and been given drink; with him and in his conviction, all of religion and life was contained in, and was obtained from the Word and writings. He knew no intermediate course. To be a Swedenborgian a man could read the writings and talk the doctrine; to be a New Churchman he must love and live the life of the New Jerusalem.
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He considered himself a Swedenborgian, and knew his office to be that of New Church minister; there was not any course for him, nor could the possibility of any exist, but that of preaching and teaching the doctrine of Swed- enborg, and the life of the New Church. His Church demanded this, and his congregations were held together by, and rested on members of it; his duty was to strengthen existing members and to make new ones, in name and in life.
And so Mr. Hibbard worked and worked on, inde- fatigably and with energy beyond his physical endurance ; as Superintending minister of the Illinois Association ; pastor of the Chicago Society, missionary, much of the time as missionary of the General Convention ; writer for periodicals and publications of the Church; and in all the many ways that opened and would open to his untiring industry.
The effect was the production of very many readers, many receivers, and accessions in Church membership; the Church grew ; the New Jerusalem, descending, found lodgment, took root, and lived in the Northwest and West and yet other places, as the result of his work.
But conditions and times change, and it seems changes came which even the strong and astute mind of John Randolph Hibbard failed to anticipate. Succeeding gen- erations followed, and became factors in the Church. Those whom he had baptized as infants and others, con- temporary with them, who had been reared in the sphere of the Church and the doctrine of Swedenborg as pub- lished, preached, taught, and talked in literature, Church, and home, neither experienced nor continued the interest of their seniors. It seemed that the demand to know, which was so strong in 1845, thirty years after was quite satiated, and factions pressing for recognition by the
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Church in many places, Chicago among them, demanded a change of preachers and preaching.
As has been said, Mr. Hibbard did not know any inter- mediate course, and being intolerant of semi-New Church- manship, as he would have characterized the position of those of the new movement, allowed the proprium of his strong character to cause him to do things which created personal dislike for himself. Finally, when the great fire came, Mr. Hibbard in Europe, his pulpit being filled by another, when many institutions in Chicago were reduced to conditions requiring rebuilding, incubating of the move- ment was accelerated, ultimately resulting in withdrawals from, and temporary dismemberment of the old, and for many years, happy church family.
Thus practically terminated the long, eminently suc- cessful Hibbard-Scammon era, which was supplanted with conditions that, as seen by poor mortal man, appear very differently as to spiritual foundation, and that certainly were, and continue, and will likely ever remain, very different physically.
During his pastorate of twenty-eight years for the Chicago Society, Mr. Hibbard filled the place of vice- president of the General Convention, as shown above, for seven years, being promoted to the presidency of the American Conference of New Church ministers. Add to the twenty-eight years with the Chicago Society five prior years of work in the state, and we have a record of thirty-three years practically in one pastorate, commenc- ing as missionary and successively filling the places of priest and bishop; his complete term of service for the New Church being more than half a century.
His record of baptisms from the time of entering into the work of pastor of the Chicago Society until the date of the last one recorded, shows sixteen hundred and six,
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they being administered to residents of fifteen states, in- cluding Minnesota, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Iowa, and others intermediate, as also the District of Columbia. Besides these, his recorded estimate of those performed prior to his living in Chicago is four hundred; conse- quently, we can safely say that according to our faith he placed the sign for regeneration on two thousand souls. It is quite safe to say that this record has never been equaled in the New Church. His record shows that he administered the rite of confirmation to five hundred and thirty persons.
Joseph K. C. Forrest was the first person baptized into the New Church in Chicago, it being by Mr. Hibbard, Nov. 13, 1845. The second, Florence A. D. Scammon- Mrs. J. S. Reed-(still living), Nov. 16th, same year. Mr. Hibbard's last recorded baptism is that of Edna J. Holden at Elwood, New Jersey, April 25, 1886, aged three years.
In the long roll of those baptized, there are the names of many who were prominent as citizens and in the affairs of Chicago; some whose names appear in history ; among them all, a considerable number that do not appear to have joined the Society.
Mr. Hibbard was first married to Jerusha Miller, of Lancaster, Ohio, born Dec. 25, 1818. She died in Chicago, December 14th, and was buried from the Adams street temple on Dec. 17, 1869, her affliction being a spinal nervous affection, which had confined her to her room and bed the greater part of eleven years. She was a woman of very lovely character, and though greatly afflicted, always patient and uncomplaining. There were no children by this union.
His second marriage was to Sarah De Charms, to which two children were born, John Randolph Scammon, March
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14, 1873, passing into the next life on the 30th of the same month, and Eadith De Charms, born Oct. 5, 1875, wife of Dr. Perry Seward of New York.
Mrs. Sarah De Charms Hibbard died in London in 1898, aged sixty-three years, leaving many who remember her with a great deal of love. She had a fine literary mind and was a beautiful writer, as may be easily and happily appreciated only by reading her charming letters in the New Church Messenger, which commenced April 11, 1900, entitled, "A Trip Through the Spreewald," a trip made in 1895.
Few men in the ministry can point to an enduring monument to their work and memory, builded by them- selves; a monument the material of which being brought to hand by their years of labor, and the monument itself, the clearly visible consummated success of their mental and physical effort. Mr. Hibbard could have done this. The New Church in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota is such a monument, the material-the New Church people who lived during his life-he more than all others made, and he formed the monument, and it is the ever- lasting shining shaft, visible to all who will look.
Look at this extract from Mr. Scammon's letter to the Convention of June 11, 1845, for a glimpse of what it meant to perform the work. * * * "At Chicago we now have six male and two female receivers, and a few other readers. * Mr. Hibbard is expected to visit us soon. He would have been with us in the spring, but for the mis- fortune he met with in losing the use of his horse just as he was starting for the North. He resides near the center of the state, at Canton."
And read these much-abbreviated paragraphs from his "Reminiscences of a Pioneer," published in the Mes- senger, beginning with 1883.
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"In early summer of 1843 I started from Lucas county, Ohio (Toledo is in Lucas county), for Illinois. The second day out my horse died at Angola, Steuben county, Ind. I had no horse, and but seven dollars and fifty cents, and was about two hundred miles from Chicago. I was given five dollars for ministerial service, and by various ways of travel reached St. Joseph, thence by boat to Chicago and stopped with Mr. Scammon in a two-story frame house located in a pleasant garden, Michigan avenue and Randolph street.
"I went from Chicago to St. Charles and there, accord- ing to arrangement, was joined by Mr. Scammon to go to Canton to the Illinois Association. It was at Uncle John Blanchard's that Mr. Scammon arrived, driving a pair of horses attached to a buggy. Mr. Scammon and I occupied the same bed in the loft of the log cabin. We talked until late in the night, but rose early, for we had nearly two hundred miles to go in three days and a half, to be at Canton on time. A pair of fine horses, a buggy with soft cushions, and Mr. Scammon to talk. As I have seen in the papers that some young ladies say, 'It was perfectly delicious.'
"That old furnace building, the place in which I first attended a meeting of the Illinois Association! I wish I could describe it. Imagine a dilapidated one-story frame building forty by twenty-five feet; a wide door in the middle of the front end, loose floor, boards on blocks for seats, the sash and glass out of one of the windows, with boards leaning over the opening to keep out the wind, a rude platform with a board in front for book and candle. I found my hat useful at my evening lecture in closing the place of a missing pane of glass, to keep the wind from extinguishing the light. The building had been used for a foundry, and a section of the old boiler was set on a pile of brick and used for a stove."
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And so he goes on and describes his first missionary tour in Illinois.
Returning to Ohio by horse, wagon, and canal, he came again to Illinois, in 1844, in an open buggy with his wife, who was in feeble health, and here remained. On the route, which was several hundred miles long, he did mis- sionary work and visited friends and relatives.
They were so universally entertained gratuitously, while en route, that the expense for entertainment was only eleven dollars, which was the amount they possessed when starting. Some money was given them during the journey, so that on arriving at Springfield they were not entirely penniless.
Why did he do it? Why endure the great labor, hard- ship, and privation? Why give his time, energy, and great ability for the pittance which he realized, to be followed possibly by what did come, a condition of dependence, if not worse? The answer is plain. Mr. Hibbard loved the Church and believed its teaching, that there is nothing in the short life on earth but opportunity, to prepare for that to come; to him having fallen the lot of New Church teacher, he cheerfully, untiringly, and most zealously filled it with unsurpassed, if equaled suc- cess.
Life on earth ended for Mr. Hibbard in Chicago, June 26, 1894. Memorial service was held in the Van Buren street temple on the first Sunday in July following, ad- ministered by Revs. Jabez Fox, Lewis P. Mercer, and Thomas A. King.
Finally, on that Sunday in July, in the great city which had grown from a mere town in the fifty years since his visit as an itinerant, preaching a new religion, without money, and unknown, but little interest existing in his work, the last invocations for consideration of the Divine Majesty were said.
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In the temple of, and presence of the Society for which he had first implored the Divine blessing forty-five years before, in the presence of some whom he had baptized as infants, and others whom he had married and who had become grandparents during his régime, all remem- bered him as the beloved pastor of the old time, for whom the records of the secretary contain so many endearing resolutions. Every one would have granted that, for the unhappy condition through which the flock had passed, waywardness in the members was as much if not more to be blamed than was the tenaciously followed and some- times mistaken course of the shepherd. There, by his successor, under whose pastorship the members of the church family had been reunited, at the very threshold of the movement for an orderly widening, and the in- auguration of more general usefulness, these words were said :
"A defender of the faith exhorting unbending loyalty to the Lord's revelation, he recalls the prophetic figure of 'Michael, the great prince, which standeth for the children of thy people' (Daniel xii:1).
"He was truly of those whose ministry of the Church and for the Church is to prove, from the Word, that the Lord in His divine human is God of heaven and earth, and that men ought to live according to the command- ments that they may be gifted with charity and faith."
As an aid to this character study, the following letter is given :
LETTER FROM REV. JOHN R. HIBBARD.
To the Members and Friends of the Illinois Association of the New Jerusalem.
Brethren :- I have been requested to write to you upon this occasion-the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of your Association. Not to do so might seem to be un-
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kind, and by others my motives might be misunderstood. The Lord leads those who really try to follow him; and I must, therefore, consider the request that has come to me as an indication that I ought to say to you a few words at least, and that to neglect or forbear to do so would be an error. And yet I hesitate, and hardly know what to say that will not be liable to be misunderstood, and that will be proper for me to say and useful for you to hear, for I have found that some of my words and deeds have been much misapprehended by some of you.
For nearly forty years I labored among you and for you with such ability as I possessed, much of the time, perhaps, with more zeal than wisdom. My own infirm- ities and weaknesses, of which I am very conscious, coming in collision with the infirmities and selfhood of some whose influence in the Association was properly very considerable, led to a severance of our official relations some ten years ago. But the prosperity of the Illinois Association can never cease to be of deep interest to me, and my heart continues to go out towards many of you as dear friends and brethren, and towards all of you with a great love that would, if possible, do you good.
I have watched the working of the Church among you for the last ten years with feelings of mingled joy and sorrow. You have added to your organization a Society in St. Louis and another in La Porte, and have formed two other Societies within the state, one at Olney and one at Hutton, and you have added several to your ministerial force. You have also organized reading circles, and published and circulated useful papers and books. All this seems encouraging, and I have rejoiced to hear it.
But your last report to the General Convention shows more than a hundred less baptized adult members than there were ten or twelve or more years ago. This is not encouraging. Why is it? A few of the West side in Chicago have, contrary to my advice, withdrawn from your body, but they have been more than balanced by the additions from La Porte and St. Louis. While in your service I baptized more than a thousand persons within the state of Illinois. Other ministers baptized
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many. Where are they all? Many have passed into the spiritual world-many more have moved away. But have not very many, being left uncared for, been absorbed by surrounding sects, or gone out into the world? As the children grew up their hereditary evils found the false atmosphere of the old Church and the world around them more congenial than the self-denying doctrines of the New, and they are gone.
Where are the individuals and families formerly in Rockford, Jaynesville, Dixon, Mt. Carroll, East Dubuque, Galesburg, Rock Island, Bloomington, Clinton, Belleville, Griggsville, Pittsfield, Springfield, Petersburg, Savannah, Rochester, Southport, Jacksonville, La Salle, Peru, Elgin, St. Charles, and several other places where formerly were companies of from three to twenty or more baptized members to whom I ministered the teachings and the Sacraments? Are they all dead or moved away? Your ministers seem to be able, industrious, and faithful, and more in number than formerly ; yet, on the whole, accord- ing to the official reports, the baptized membership has very considerably diminished. Could there be some efficient system of exercising a watchful care over the children and youth, and even the adults as well, who are baptized into the New Church, would it not be a blessing ? But I will not speak further of this. It may be useful ; I hope so, but it is not pleasant.
Allow me to say a few words to my brethren, the ministers. If the Lord has called you to the work in which you are engaged, He will give you grace and strength to fulfil the duties of your calling usefully to the Church and to the souls of your fellow men, whether acceptably to those among whom your lots may at times be cast or not. Be faithful to Him, your Divine Master. He has revealed from His Word, in the writings of Swedenborg, all that is necessary for you to know to do your duty as ministers and lead souls to heaven. Study the Word and the writings daily. Seek to know their meaning. Consultation with other ministers is good, but allow no one to interpret the writings for you. Following others' leads, allowing others to interpret the writings for you, may do you and the Church much harm.
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A man of strong will and subtle reasoning powers com- bined may easily lead the young minister to yield his own judgment and understanding of the writings to the stronger sphere. Such yielding is injurious. I have ob- served it and felt the effects of it, much to my regret. It tends to the formation of doctrinal cliques upon special subjects, led by some one minister who becomes to his followers a dictator. Let the writings be the Lord's Truth to you; but let no man's interpretation of them be so. Judge of their meaning for yourself, and then firmly-with gentleness towards any who differ-follow it. If you would have the "water become wine," "what- soever He saith unto you do it." Another thing, your business is "to teach truth and thereby lead to good," and thereby to the Lord, and thus to save souls; and truths that have not salvation in them are comparatively un- important. Truths that are essential to salvation are few in number and may be easily taught. "The Divinity of the Lord," "the Holiness and true character of the Word," and "the life of charity," involving "repentance from evil, and shunning it as sin." Teach these doctrines. Preach them over and over again. Those who receive, believe, and practice them will be saved; those who do not will be lost. Remember this. Impress it upon your minds, and use all your powers to impress these truths upon the minds of others. It is of more importance that your hearers should "look to the Lord" and repent of their sins than it is that they should believe or do anything else. Other doctrines than these essential ones are more or less important, but not worth spending much time or thought over, and certainly not worth contending severely about. Laws of order are revealed in the writings. Enough to work by may be adapted and applied to various conditions, states, and circumstances. They are not worth making trouble about. Salvation is not in the style of a minister's dress, nor in the form of worship, nor in the name of an office. Study the writings and form your own opinion of what they mean. Teach this as clearly and plainly as you can, but do not strongly urge or force your views upon any. Hold your views firmly, kindly,
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